More Russian useful idiot fantasies that ignore Russia's history of genocidal empire building. Putin's only hope is to get western public opinion to fall for Mr. Dunn's useful idiot snake oil. Here's how this conflict to be solved through deescalation therapy:
"fantasies of a total wipeout victory for Ukraine": Previous Russian defeats show Russia always loses without imported western military technology and a western alliance. In the Great Northern War against Sweden Russia fought in an anti-Swedish coalition. Against Napoleon Russia was part of a British-led coalition. Against Germany in WWII the USSR owed its survival to the timely delivery of British tanks and planes in Sept and Oct 1941 and later to American Lendlease aid. And Stalin said so in Tehran in Nov 1943 in "a toast to American war production, without which the war could not be won." Without western support and imported military technology Russia got:
* Defeat in Ivan Grozny's Livonian War.
* Peter's defeat and evacuation from the Sea of Azov against the Ottomans.
* Defeat in Crimea against the British-French coalition's metal ships (vs Russia's wooden ships) and railway logistics. Crimean Loser 1.0 Nicholas I had all but banned railway construction in Russia.
* Defeat against Japan in 1905.
* Defeat and total collapse in WWI even within a western alliance.
* Defeat in Afghanistan in 1979-89 that led to the breakup of the USSR.
"the White House quietly admitted neither side could win": Ukrainian victories in Kharkiv and Kherson are leading indicators. The same White House "experts" that expected Russia to take Kyiv and offered Zelenskiy a ride instead of ammunition thought Ukraine would collapse in 3-4 days. You can be sure their views have changed since June. The stalemate you wrote of in July is ancient history. Your view here is seriously out of date.
"the odds are even": If I could buy a put option or short this view--and the Russian military--I'd make a ton of money by year end or next spring. As a military analyst Mr. Dunn is a perfect contrarian indicator, having written in July that Russia was winning, about stalemate just before the September Kharkiv offensive and now about odds are even right after Kherson. Russia's army has culminated and Ukraine has irreversible momentum--if the western coalition doesn't let up on support due to public opinion shifting toward useful idiot appeasers like Mr. Dunn.
This administration is as needlessly cautious about Russian collapse as Bush 1.0 was in his chicken Kiev speech warning against a collapse of the USSR in 1991. The foreign policy blob chicken Kiev crowd is as wrong now as it was in 1991. They're underestimating the potential for Russian collapse just as they did in 1917 and 1989-91. They were just as wrong in their forecasts of a USSR collapse in 1941-42 because rode to war in Studebakers and Chryslers (the Tatars Stalin deported from newly liberated Crimea in March 1944 rode in the same vehicles).
"decree prohibiting negotiations": with a Putin-led Russia. No Ukrainian leader would survive a handshake with the butcher of Bucha who gave medals to soldiers who slaughtered Ukrainian civilians.
"no more blank checks": There's a bipartisan majority for supporting Ukraine "as long as it takes". Ask Mitch McConnell. The isolationist MTG-Gosar/MAGA Republicans lost the midterms and slimy McCarthy knows it. They meet the pacifist left in the same place as the Squad-Chomskian-Dunn left on the American political horseshoe, just as the "don't fight the Jews' war" Lindbergh-Father Coughlin isolationist right met the "don't fight the imperialist war" CPUSA until June 22, 1941.
"I do recognize Ukraine as a nation": Really? You wrote recommendations to surrender to Putin-Sergeytsev-Medvedev-Solovyev-Pavel Gubarev let's erase Ukraine genocide just a few short months ago. Kharkiv and Kherson have changed the hymnal you sing surrender from? Why? Must be HIMARS killing Russian ammo depots and Ukrainian thunder runs.
"listen to Kissinger": The Metternich-loving Vietnam-Cambodian war criminal author of "A World Restored" , the genocide-triggering secret bombing of Cambodia and the CIA-engineered other 9-11 coup in Chile deserves neither to be listened to nor to die in his bed. He was just as wrong in his unwarranted fear of the dissolution of the USSR. Here I, for once, agree with Chomsky on the permanence of Kissinger's amoral ignorance of policy consequences and himself as a contrarian indicator of sensible policy. His criminally negligent policy choices--Lon Nol coup against Sihanouk 1970, Cambodia invasion 1970, Christmas Hanoi bombing 1972, Chile 1973, etc--are too long to list here.
"ugly settlement": Freezes the conflict for the next round. Ukrainians will refuse any settlement that allows Russia to relaunch the war against their children 10-20 years from now. This is what makes Ukraine's BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) very different from Russia's Russia wins by playing for time. Ukraine doesn't and knows it's in a race between the durability of western support and the ongoing collapse of the Russian military that's quite apparent from:
* Depressed Russian milbloggers
* The rise in power of Wagner Group warlord Prigozhin over humiliated Defense Minister Shoigu.
* Increased fragging of officers by mobiki and assassinations of mobilization recruitment officers, such as one recently in Vladivostok. Four shots in the chest and officially ruled a "suicide".
* Every intercepted call home of Russian soldiers (https://www.youtube.com/@insightsfromukraineandrussia)
The Ukrainians have already defined real diplomacy. It must include:
1. Total Russian withdrawal to 2013 borders.
2. Real enforceable security guarantees for Ukraine.
3. Reparations paid for from frozen state and private Russian assets and oil revenues. The UN General Assembly just voted for this.
4. Trials of all Russian war criminals who carried out or ordered war crimes.
I'd add breaking up the bear into a very large set of smaller Tatar, Bashkiri, Yakut, Buryat, Chechen, Dagestani, Karelian, Kalmyk, Chuvash, Komy, Tuvan and other cubs who are the real owners of the commodities financing Russia's war machine; i.e. sending the five century old genocidal and kleptocratic Russian empire to the same place as the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Japanese, British, French, Dutch, Italian, Belgian, Spanish and Portuguese empires. The 1991 breakup left the job only half done, as with Germany in 1918. Time to finish it.
